🔗 Share this article

Usually, the NFL's Head Coach of the Year honor adheres to a simple script. It frequently functions as a kind of apology. Our apologies we misjudged your franchise in our pre-campaign forecasts.

In theory, it's a clear-cut line: the skipper who engineered the largest turnaround is handed the award. In reality, it sparks an annual discussion about expectations and whether we're genuinely honoring superior coaching or simply the most shocking shock.

However this year's race is fundamentally different. The pool of contenders is unusually deep. It has been the campaign of comebacks. The NFL has been chaotic, with recent division winners fading and longtime strugglers ascending together. Under an normal season, a coach guiding the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the overwhelming favorite. Yet in this turbulent and fun season, he's competing with several other exceptional coaches.

Below is how the hypothetical ballot could look.

5) Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears, 11-5

Coach of the Year voters adore QBs. History shows this. Sean McVay in 2017. Kevin Stefanski in 2020. A third in 2022. When you transform a franchise QB, you're halfway home.

Ben Johnson hasn't just fixed Caleb Williams; he's unleashed him. In the right system, the QB has been afforded the opportunity to display his special talent. Since Week 9, the Bears rank fourth in offensive EPA per play. This isn't a hot streak – it's consistent dominance. With his guidance, Williams has become more decisive, far less careless, and has willingly submitted to the gameplan rather than freelancing. It is an offense constructed solely in Johnson's image: a physical run game, a heavy dose of play-action and a creative aerial game that springs wide receiver targets all over the field. Williams has capitalized. And when easy reads weren't there, he's been capable to spin big plays from nothing.

The coach came to Chicago with a defined offensive vision. Almost each bet – overhauling the trenches, utilizing the tight ends, turning the QB into a rhythm thrower – has paid off. This is uncommon for a rookie head coach. And it's rarer yet for a coach who walked into the organization with the level of pressure Johnson did. For consecutive straight cycles, he was the hottest name on the coaching market. However when it comes to selecting a leader, there are no sure things. Remarkably, he has met the hype – and even surpassed them. He's proven not only to be a scheme wizard but the kind of leader that can breathe new life into an organization.

During a normal season, Johnson would be the clear-cut choice. Yet this is not a typical season!

The area where Johnson's case runs a bit unstuck is on defense. The Chicago defense currently sit 25th in defensive success rate. They are surviving on turnovers, and turnovers are famously unreliable. Defensive minds can stress creating turnovers, but no one can guarantee it. Johnson is on the ballot because the offense is real. He's not higher because luck is doing an outsized share of the defense's heavy lifting. With a few bounces of the ball, the team would be several victories worse off. It's been an remarkable transformation, and the core is in place for long-term winning. But he comes up short in this ranking.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's another first-time head coach who has engineered a rapid turnaround. During the stretch run of the year, he has his franchise quarterback playing the most complete overall football of his career. And he's also overseen the overhaul of a defensive unit that now ranks number five in the league in EPA per play.

What's more notably, Coen has excelled at the intangibles stuff, which was not a given following his initial press conference introduction and some of his preseason moves.

Coen took over the Jaguars with an uncommonly raw staff. Unlike other coaches, who packed their staff with the ideal coaching blend of youth and experience, Coen bet on first-timers. Starting with the head coach himself to coordinators to assistant coaches, the Jaguars are stocked with first-timers. That type of setup is intriguing on paper, but often collapses in practice – as past failures are a cautionary tale – because everyone is learning a new job in real-time. Yet Coen has managed to bring the entire group and everything together.

After an early strong beginning, there was a chance that the season would go off the track. A mid-year setback had the Jags wobbling once more. That's typically when coaches panic and change too much. Coen didn't. Instead, he simplified the approach. Jacksonville stopped chasing home-run plays and started seeking sustainable ones. Coen recentered the offense around his playmakers and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more.

The outcomes are evident. The Jaguars have won multiple games consecutively and will be the conference's No 3 seed. He gets the tiniest deduction in the rankings because he took over a talented roster, but he has proven he can maximize that roster.

3) Mike Macdonald, His Team, 13-3

Every Strong of the Year narrative has a defining decision. For the Seahawks coach, it was his QB choice.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a new quarterback and pairing him with an innovative offensive coordinator could have ended the campaign in the early weeks. Instead, it made it. By the middle point of the season, the acquisition was an Most Valuable Player front-runner. He has cooled off since that hot streak, slipping to 23rd in EPA per pass attempt over the latter part of the schedule, putting him only one spot ahead of other QBs.

Still